'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
That’s going to kill the transatlantic flight business from France.
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
He obviously doesn't know what the words 'pause' and 'permanent' mean then. They have exactly the opposite meanings. He is an idiot (as if that needed saying)
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
His Ukrainian plan went nowhere. His go-to move for grabbing the headlines is tariffs, but those are looking trickier from a legal standpoint and he's had to start rolling them back because of the impact on inflation. What else does he have to ensure he's still the centre of attention? Of course: immigration! Elon will be pissed off, but that doesn't matter.
Out this morning - the Guardian on the latest YP chaos:
‘We had six MPs and four factions’: inside Your Party’s toxic power struggles
At an early meeting to set the path for what would become Your Party, participants quickly agreed on one thing: given the cliches about leftwingers forever falling out, at all costs they must avoid a descent into factionalism.
Six months on and the Liverpool venue hosting this weekend’s inaugural Your Party conference has been warned to expect potential disruption, including stage invasions by disgruntled members representing particular wings. Extra security guards have been hired.
Even by the standards of fringe parties (see also, all those Re- parties on the right), Your Party is shaping up to be a corker of a fiasco. Any theories as to why it's so bad?
(Mine, apart from hating SKS not being a solid foundation for any party, is that tech makes it too easy to arrange the surface features of a movement when there's nothing underneath.)
I suspect it is some combination of divisions over small policy differences that often fixate the far left, the fundamental contradiction between a socially progressive party and a muslim party (note the reference in the article to trans issues already being a flashpoint), and the characters of Corbyn and Sultana being diametrically opposite personalities in almost every respect?
As a brand new outfit, there is 'everything to fight for' in terms of both its platform and who gets what job and hence where the organisational power lies. And it isn't being formed because of a strong, single imperative (for example the SDP originated from counter-reaction to Labour's opposition to Europe), so they don't have much to unite around other than Gaza.
The story of Your Party imploding while the Greens enjoy a surge is pretty much identical to Change UK imploding while the Lib Dems surged in 2018-19. Much easier to build from an established foundation and voter brand than create something entirely new.
UKIP and its successors are the exception, because there wasn’t an established party the populist right could inhabit at the time they first surged (the Conservatives were still officially a pro-EU party).
Has anyone ever asked the Change UK lot what they thought would happen with the LibDems? Did they think LibDem MPs would flock to Change UK and the party just dissolve itself? Did they think there would just be two centrist parties competing for votes? Did they think they would merge with the LibDems at some later date?
I don't think they had any plan at all. Because some of them - Gapes being an obvious example - were tribal Labour politicians with a strong dislike for the LibDems, there was never any question of their taking the SDP route and reaching an accommodation with them. They launched with no prospectus nor organisation, and people who expressed an interest (which I did, mostly from curiosity) never heard from them again. Nor did emails to them get answered.
The irony is that voters are now crying out for change, and parties offering or appearing to offer it - from Reform to the Greens and even the putative YP - are getting lots of support and interest.
But of course the other irony is that "Change UK" was almost the ultimate status quo party!
Strange to think that in 1988 West Virginia voted for Dukakis and California for George HW Bush. Bill Clinton twice won West Virginia too. Reflects how the Republicans have become a more white working class party since and the Democrats more upper middle class
The most striking thing in the USA is how nearly all states have flipped over the decades, with the Southern heartlands flipping Republican and the Republicans losing New England, California etc. In 1948 the Dems won nearly the entire of the Midwest and West, including Texas.
The US is highly polarised, but those poles shift over time.
Is that because the parties have flipped? Lincoln was a Republican, George Wallace was a Democrat. In the early sixties southern Democrats were right wing and Nelson Rockefeller seemed reasonably reasonable. Eisenhower nowadays seems like a centrist Democrat.
The two parties were historically very broad politically.
The Dems were standard centre-left but had a populist wing in the Prairies and Rockies and a KKK wing in the confederate states.
The GOP were standard centre-right but had a liberal wing in the north east and a southern unionist wing in Appalachia.
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
His Ukrainian plan went nowhere. His go-to move for grabbing the headlines is tariffs, but those are looking trickier from a legal standpoint and he's had to start rolling them back because of the impact on inflation. What else does he have to ensure he's still the centre of attention? Of course: immigration! Elon will be pissed off, but that doesn't matter.
Isn't Vance's wife a migrant from a "third world country"?
Out this morning - the Guardian on the latest YP chaos:
‘We had six MPs and four factions’: inside Your Party’s toxic power struggles
At an early meeting to set the path for what would become Your Party, participants quickly agreed on one thing: given the cliches about leftwingers forever falling out, at all costs they must avoid a descent into factionalism.
Six months on and the Liverpool venue hosting this weekend’s inaugural Your Party conference has been warned to expect potential disruption, including stage invasions by disgruntled members representing particular wings. Extra security guards have been hired.
Even by the standards of fringe parties (see also, all those Re- parties on the right), Your Party is shaping up to be a corker of a fiasco. Any theories as to why it's so bad?
(Mine, apart from hating SKS not being a solid foundation for any party, is that tech makes it too easy to arrange the surface features of a movement when there's nothing underneath.)
I suspect it is some combination of divisions over small policy differences that often fixate the far left, the fundamental contradiction between a socially progressive party and a muslim party (note the reference in the article to trans issues already being a flashpoint), and the characters of Corbyn and Sultana being diametrically opposite personalities in almost every respect?
As a brand new outfit, there is 'everything to fight for' in terms of both its platform and who gets what job and hence where the organisational power lies. And it isn't being formed because of a strong, single imperative (for example the SDP originated from counter-reaction to Labour's opposition to Europe), so they don't have much to unite around other than Gaza.
The headline contradicts the more nuanced article. The sober reality is that there's a gap on the left which Your Party may or may not fill. Labour has quite deliberately moved to the centre (arguably centre-right), the LibDems still can't decide on a firm direction, and the Greens have opted to go left but are mainly known as an environmental movement. There is considerable support for a left-wing party, ideally with a working relationship with the Greens, and Your Party can potentially harvest that if they manage to avoid further splits, have a reasonable conference and build a lasting leadership. Corbyn's speech on Wednesday included the useful insight that British politics traditionally mloves in a narrow spectrum of "acceptable" policies, disguised by cod drama of five-yearly showdowns, and anything seriously left-wing runs into credibility issues magnified by the very limited press. One difficulty that they have is the way media works in Britain - the concept of a party with anonymous collective leadership is completely alien to British media tradition, so they fall back on occasionally giving Zarah an airing as the youngest recognisable semi-leader - contrast with the success of Reform, who seem willing to have Farage make up policy and reverse it at will.
People like me who think Labour has moved too far to the right but aren't very interested in ecology have a choice - do we try to help move Labour leftwards again, give Your Party a try, have a go with the Greens, or do nothing and hope that a way forward becomes obvious. The weekend may cast some light. I wouldn't rely on the media to give the answer, but Your Party badly needs an identifiable leadership.
Viewing the greens as mainly an environmental movement reflects your (our) age, I think? Many young people now see it differently - or at least, as much more?
YP garnered a fair amount of initial enthusiasm, but lacks a prospectus, clear leadership, or organisation. And is going to struggle to create all three, given that each inevitably leads to dissent and an internal struggle for power (such as it is).
A dire YouGov poll on the budget lays out the scale of the task for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves
48% see it as unfair vs 21% who see it as fair
That’s the second worst score for a budget recorded by YouGov. Only the Truss mini-budget fared worse
50% say it will leave their family worse off. Only 3% say they’ll be better off
a clear majority of people oppose the tax rise on workers and lifting the two child benefit cap - a brutal indictment of the decisions taken on Wednesday
A few budget policies were popular, 82% of voters back the increased taxes on gambling, 71% back the increased minimum wage, 67% back the new annual charge for properties worth over £2 million, 50% back freezing the amount students earn before repaying their student loan.
However, some measures were very unpopular. 62% opposed reducing the amount that can be paid into a cash ISA, 50% opposed capping the amount that can be paid into pensions without paying NI via salary sacrifice, 56% opposed freezing the amount people can earn before paying tax at its current level and 56% also opposed ending the 2 child benefit cap (though 52% of Green voters backed ending the cap) https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53583-how-have-britons-reacted-to-the-2025-budget
What’s that about IIhan Omar marrying her brother?!
Its a longstanding slur by the alt-right. Omar's husband is really her brother brought to the USA as a fake marriage.
I figured out that from googling, but it’s just so implausible
MAGA Republicans are not very well connected to reality.
True, although most of them usually have some kind of tenuous link to reality that is then stretched, twisted and extrapolated. This doesn’t seem to have any basis whatsoever
Michelle Obama and Brigitte Marcon are actually men, would be another example of how MAGA conspiracy theories can have zero relationship with reality.
The nasty Macron rumour wasn’t really a MAGA conspiracy theory (not that I want to defend them). It was a French hit job which was picked up by conspiracy loons and podcasters who just want conspiracies and toxic stories to discuss for hits. It wasn’t on MAGA’s radar as such as their focus is the US and domestic opposition however there is a big crossover between MAGA and the aforementioned toxic podcasters.
Candace Owens is getting her arse sued for hundreds of millions in the US by Brigette Macron.
The standard of proof for defamation in the US is very high, requiring “Actual Malice”, but there’s a pretty good chance she ends up losing and bankrupt.
She’s now suggesting, with no evidence, that the Macrons are trying to kill her.
There are many things wrong with the US legal system.
But their definitions of libel and the resulting ability/inability to sue are vastly better than this country.
It is very noticeable that libel law in this country is often used by the rich and guilty to try to hide their behaviour.
It simply doesn't work like that in the US.
This is not surprising when you look at the history of libel in the UK - what it was invented for. And how, in the US, they shaped the laws at the founding, in response to that.
But maybe libel laws also help constrain the excesses of political lying. The sheer scale of mendacity from Trump and the Republicans might have been less sustainable with UK libel laws allowing people to defend themselves.
It’s keeping up with the bullshit.
Huge settlement have been awarded against MAGA types for this - see Dominion vs Fox News (Fucker Carlson), Alex Jones vs the Sandy Hook families
If the US had U.K. style libel laws, Donald Trump would have a branch of Carter Fuck in an office in the White House, weaponising libel against his opponents.
There is plenty of mendacity that has gone unpunished, and with many of the cases that have been won in court, the defendants are avoiding paying. Trump still ows E Jean Carroll millions. Alex Jones is still operating.
Trump has also used libel cases as a weapon against his opponents, but he's never won a case in court. I don't think he's never won a case because US law has a very high threshold for libel. I think he's never won a case because he's a bloviating liar.
Trump gets away with what he does in civil law for two main reasons. Firstly, in America there are essentially no penalties for frivolous or vexatious litigation, or there are but they are very rarely imposed, for fear of deterring genuine lawsuits (a largely bogus argument, but a convenient one for the legal profession, which of course makes huge amounts of money from lawfare). So he gets to file bullshit lawsuits or use bogus defences to others' lawsuits. Secondly, civil law in America is hugely expensive, even more than here, mostly because lawyers are hugely overpaid but also because legal costs are very rarely ruled excessive, so Trump's opponents rarely have the resources to outlast him.
So huge and enforced penalties for bogus lawsuits, a massive reduction in legal fees through deregulation and the introduction of proper competition in the legal profession and the introduction of the loser pays principle to deter frivolous lawsuits and defences would go a long way to fix what an American lawyer friend of mine recently called "this totally broken system".
But all those measures would devastate the earnings of the parasitic legal profession that dominates Congress (about 30% of the House and 50% of the Senate have legal backgrounds of some type), so none will ever happen.
Out this morning - the Guardian on the latest YP chaos:
‘We had six MPs and four factions’: inside Your Party’s toxic power struggles
At an early meeting to set the path for what would become Your Party, participants quickly agreed on one thing: given the cliches about leftwingers forever falling out, at all costs they must avoid a descent into factionalism.
Six months on and the Liverpool venue hosting this weekend’s inaugural Your Party conference has been warned to expect potential disruption, including stage invasions by disgruntled members representing particular wings. Extra security guards have been hired.
Even by the standards of fringe parties (see also, all those Re- parties on the right), Your Party is shaping up to be a corker of a fiasco. Any theories as to why it's so bad?
(Mine, apart from hating SKS not being a solid foundation for any party, is that tech makes it too easy to arrange the surface features of a movement when there's nothing underneath.)
I suspect it is some combination of divisions over small policy differences that often fixate the far left, the fundamental contradiction between a socially progressive party and a muslim party (note the reference in the article to trans issues already being a flashpoint), and the characters of Corbyn and Sultana being diametrically opposite personalities in almost every respect?
As a brand new outfit, there is 'everything to fight for' in terms of both its platform and who gets what job and hence where the organisational power lies. And it isn't being formed because of a strong, single imperative (for example the SDP originated from counter-reaction to Labour's opposition to Europe), so they don't have much to unite around other than Gaza.
The story of Your Party imploding while the Greens enjoy a surge is pretty much identical to Change UK imploding while the Lib Dems surged in 2018-19. Much easier to build from an established foundation and voter brand than create something entirely new.
UKIP and its successors are the exception, because there wasn’t an established party the populist right could inhabit at the time they first surged (the Conservatives were still officially a pro-EU party).
Has anyone ever asked the Change UK lot what they thought would happen with the LibDems? Did they think LibDem MPs would flock to Change UK and the party just dissolve itself? Did they think there would just be two centrist parties competing for votes? Did they think they would merge with the LibDems at some later date?
I don't think they had any plan at all. Because some of them - Gapes being an obvious example - were tribal Labour politicians with a strong dislike for the LibDems, there was never any question of their taking the SDP route and reaching an accommodation with them. They launched with no prospectus nor organisation, and people who expressed an interest (which I did, mostly from curiosity) never heard from them again. Nor did emails to them get answered.
The irony is that voters are now crying out for change, and parties offering or appearing to offer it - from Reform to the Greens and even the putative YP - are getting lots of support and interest.
But of course the other irony is that "Change UK" was almost the ultimate status quo party!
A thing politicians don't sufficiently get is that most people most of the time in most areas of life hate, distrust and detest change and the older they get the more this is true. They like familiarity, gradual development and incremental improvement.
A small group of people - early adopters, fashionistas, self haters, interferers and others - love change, especially change for its own sake. They are over represented in politics and media.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Strange to think that in 1988 West Virginia voted for Dukakis and California for George HW Bush. Bill Clinton twice won West Virginia too. Reflects how the Republicans have become a more white working class party since and the Democrats more upper middle class
The most striking thing in the USA is how nearly all states have flipped over the decades, with the Southern heartlands flipping Republican and the Republicans losing New England, California etc. In 1948 the Dems won nearly the entire of the Midwest and West, including Texas.
The US is highly polarised, but those poles shift over time.
Is that because the parties have flipped? Lincoln was a Republican, George Wallace was a Democrat. In the early sixties southern Democrats were right wing and Nelson Rockefeller seemed reasonably reasonable. Eisenhower nowadays seems like a centrist Democrat.
I've never tracked the history of that in detail; it's in my window of shadow in the 30 years before I was born.
I'm sure there will be about 6 Letters from America if I look at the archives.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
In fact, the linkages between the Ukrainian and Russia industrial bases was one of the internal Russian justifications for the invasion. Autarky within The Motherland.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth” - Mike Tyson.
Strange to think that in 1988 West Virginia voted for Dukakis and California for George HW Bush. Bill Clinton twice won West Virginia too. Reflects how the Republicans have become a more white working class party since and the Democrats more upper middle class
The most striking thing in the USA is how nearly all states have flipped over the decades, with the Southern heartlands flipping Republican and the Republicans losing New England, California etc. In 1948 the Dems won nearly the entire of the Midwest and West, including Texas.
The US is highly polarised, but those poles shift over time.
Is that because the parties have flipped? Lincoln was a Republican, George Wallace was a Democrat. In the early sixties southern Democrats were right wing and Nelson Rockefeller seemed reasonably reasonable. Eisenhower nowadays seems like a centrist Democrat.
Both parties were, and to some extent still are, coalitions. The Republican coalition from the Civil War and before the Reagan era was liberals and big business; the Democrat coalition was organised labour and rump Confederates. Each party's emphasis could change depending on which faction was to the fore.
What’s that about IIhan Omar marrying her brother?!
Its a longstanding slur by the alt-right. Omar's husband is really her brother brought to the USA as a fake marriage.
I figured out that from googling, but it’s just so implausible
MAGA Republicans are not very well connected to reality.
True, although most of them usually have some kind of tenuous link to reality that is then stretched, twisted and extrapolated. This doesn’t seem to have any basis whatsoever
Michelle Obama and Brigitte Marcon are actually men, would be another example of how MAGA conspiracy theories can have zero relationship with reality.
The nasty Macron rumour wasn’t really a MAGA conspiracy theory (not that I want to defend them). It was a French hit job which was picked up by conspiracy loons and podcasters who just want conspiracies and toxic stories to discuss for hits. It wasn’t on MAGA’s radar as such as their focus is the US and domestic opposition however there is a big crossover between MAGA and the aforementioned toxic podcasters.
Candace Owens is getting her arse sued for hundreds of millions in the US by Brigette Macron.
The standard of proof for defamation in the US is very high, requiring “Actual Malice”, but there’s a pretty good chance she ends up losing and bankrupt.
She’s now suggesting, with no evidence, that the Macrons are trying to kill her.
There are many things wrong with the US legal system.
But their definitions of libel and the resulting ability/inability to sue are vastly better than this country.
It is very noticeable that libel law in this country is often used by the rich and guilty to try to hide their behaviour.
It simply doesn't work like that in the US.
This is not surprising when you look at the history of libel in the UK - what it was invented for. And how, in the US, they shaped the laws at the founding, in response to that.
But maybe libel laws also help constrain the excesses of political lying. The sheer scale of mendacity from Trump and the Republicans might have been less sustainable with UK libel laws allowing people to defend themselves.
It’s keeping up with the bullshit.
Huge settlement have been awarded against MAGA types for this - see Dominion vs Fox News (Fucker Carlson), Alex Jones vs the Sandy Hook families
If the US had U.K. style libel laws, Donald Trump would have a branch of Carter Fuck in an office in the White House, weaponising libel against his opponents.
There is plenty of mendacity that has gone unpunished, and with many of the cases that have been won in court, the defendants are avoiding paying. Trump still ows E Jean Carroll millions. Alex Jones is still operating.
Trump has also used libel cases as a weapon against his opponents, but he's never won a case in court. I don't think he's never won a case because US law has a very high threshold for libel. I think he's never won a case because he's a bloviating liar.
Trump gets away with what he does in civil law for two main reasons. Firstly, in America there are essentially no penalties for frivolous or vexatious litigation, or there are but they are very rarely imposed, for fear of deterring genuine lawsuits (a largely bogus argument, but a convenient one for the legal profession, which of course makes huge amounts of money from lawfare). So he gets to file bullshit lawsuits or use bogus defences to others' lawsuits. Secondly, civil law in America is hugely expensive, even more than here, mostly because lawyers are hugely overpaid but also because legal costs are very rarely ruled excessive, so Trump's opponents rarely have the resources to outlast him.
So huge and enforced penalties for bogus lawsuits, a massive reduction in legal fees through deregulation and the introduction of proper competition in the legal profession and the introduction of the loser pays principle to deter frivolous lawsuits and defences would go a long way to fix what an American lawyer friend of mine recently called "this totally broken system".
But all those measures would devastate the earnings of the parasitic legal profession that dominates Congress (about 30% of the House and 50% of the Senate have legal backgrounds of some type), so none will ever happen.
I understand that the mantra is ‘innocent until proven broke’
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
His Ukrainian plan went nowhere. His go-to move for grabbing the headlines is tariffs, but those are looking trickier from a legal standpoint and he's had to start rolling them back because of the impact on inflation. What else does he have to ensure he's still the centre of attention? Of course: immigration! Elon will be pissed off, but that doesn't matter.
Isn't Vance's wife a migrant from a "third world country"?
And in immigrants doing the jobs too horrible for the locals to do news, Trumpet’s missus from a formerly second world country.
A dire YouGov poll on the budget lays out the scale of the task for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves
48% see it as unfair vs 21% who see it as fair
That’s the second worst score for a budget recorded by YouGov. Only the Truss mini-budget fared worse
50% say it will leave their family worse off. Only 3% say they’ll be better off
a clear majority of people oppose the tax rise on workers and lifting the two child benefit cap - a brutal indictment of the decisions taken on Wednesday
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
Out this morning - the Guardian on the latest YP chaos:
‘We had six MPs and four factions’: inside Your Party’s toxic power struggles
At an early meeting to set the path for what would become Your Party, participants quickly agreed on one thing: given the cliches about leftwingers forever falling out, at all costs they must avoid a descent into factionalism.
Six months on and the Liverpool venue hosting this weekend’s inaugural Your Party conference has been warned to expect potential disruption, including stage invasions by disgruntled members representing particular wings. Extra security guards have been hired.
Even by the standards of fringe parties (see also, all those Re- parties on the right), Your Party is shaping up to be a corker of a fiasco. Any theories as to why it's so bad?
(Mine, apart from hating SKS not being a solid foundation for any party, is that tech makes it too easy to arrange the surface features of a movement when there's nothing underneath.)
I suspect it is some combination of divisions over small policy differences that often fixate the far left, the fundamental contradiction between a socially progressive party and a muslim party (note the reference in the article to trans issues already being a flashpoint), and the characters of Corbyn and Sultana being diametrically opposite personalities in almost every respect?
As a brand new outfit, there is 'everything to fight for' in terms of both its platform and who gets what job and hence where the organisational power lies. And it isn't being formed because of a strong, single imperative (for example the SDP originated from counter-reaction to Labour's opposition to Europe), so they don't have much to unite around other than Gaza.
The story of Your Party imploding while the Greens enjoy a surge is pretty much identical to Change UK imploding while the Lib Dems surged in 2018-19. Much easier to build from an established foundation and voter brand than create something entirely new.
UKIP and its successors are the exception, because there wasn’t an established party the populist right could inhabit at the time they first surged (the Conservatives were still officially a pro-EU party).
Has anyone ever asked the Change UK lot what they thought would happen with the LibDems? Did they think LibDem MPs would flock to Change UK and the party just dissolve itself? Did they think there would just be two centrist parties competing for votes? Did they think they would merge with the LibDems at some later date?
I don't think they had any plan at all. Because some of them - Gapes being an obvious example - were tribal Labour politicians with a strong dislike for the LibDems, there was never any question of their taking the SDP route and reaching an accommodation with them. They launched with no prospectus nor organisation, and people who expressed an interest (which I did, mostly from curiosity) never heard from them again. Nor did emails to them get answered.
The irony is that voters are now crying out for change, and parties offering or appearing to offer it - from Reform to the Greens and even the putative YP - are getting lots of support and interest.
But of course the other irony is that "Change UK" was almost the ultimate status quo party!
A thing politicians don't sufficiently get is that most people most of the time in most areas of life hate, distrust and detest change and the older they get the more this is true. They like familiarity, gradual development and incremental improvement.
A small group of people - early adopters, fashionistas, self haters, interferers and others - love change, especially change for its own sake. They are over represented in politics and media.
On the contrary, I think very many people want change right now - they see that politics and indeed many aspects of the country are broken, and need some significant changes to be mended. The trouble is that there isn't a consensus around what "mended" might mean, and no-one has a plan for getting there - nor the bravery to confront voters with any sort of honest appraisal.
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
So a repeat of the 1920s/1930s America First playbook, when the immediate consequence was that the USA spent about half a decade longer than other comparators (eg Europe) recovering from the Great Depression.
They still have consequences now due to some of the laws passed back then. Why, for example, despite Florida being the most significant hub of the cruise industry, are the majority of cruise ships built in Europe?
(There's a further question as to why none of them are built in the UK, of course.)
On an aside, how do people assess the USA now? I'm moving towards comparisons with Gulf states - third world governance system (not quite there yet, though), lots of wealth which is far too concentrated, and the little people can go and f*ck themselves.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth” - Mike Tyson.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
When he was Mayor of London he got rid of Winterval Cards and restored the traditional Christmas ones.
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
Yes, they do.
There is quite a bit of anger about it on my local FB groups too.
I think for the Tories go hard on it as it was a reform policy too.
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
Yes, they do.
There is quite a bit of anger about it on my local FB groups too.
I think for the Tories go hard on it as it was a reform policy too.
They need to be a bit careful though. There is a fine line between condemning workshy chavs with 17 children, and killing all the firstborn. Nuance!
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
The Russian expectation was caused by a combination of Ukrainian patriotism and organised intelligence work. Ironically
In the run up to the invasion, the FSB tried widespread bribery of politicians, business owners etc to get them to work for Russian. A 5th column.
The vast majority reported these approaches to Ukrainian intelligence. Who told them to take the money, and become double agents.
So Ukrainian intelligence had complete infiltration of the Russian network in Ukraine. Which meant that many of the Russian operations in Ukraine at the start of the invasion were compromised. See the airport attack, for example.
The problem was that the Russians, before the invasion, thought that everyone they’d approached had signed on. If everyone at the top of the country was prepared to work for Russia, the war was going to be a doddle. Obviously…
Just finished talking to my daughter and while we've all been chewing the fat over the proposed new employment legislation she's been writing it. Much work down the drain, it seems, but that's part of biz and to be honest she thought the six month time frame was a perfectly reasonable compromise. She did say the 'day one' legislation was widely misreported (isn't it always?) and that it didn't amount to much more than an obligation to give some coherent reason for sacking someone and showing a bit of courtesy in so doing, but the six month thing is probably a bit more workable and therefore more likely to be accepted.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
The appointment of Kate Bingham to the Chair of the UK Vaccine taskforce.
Out this morning - the Guardian on the latest YP chaos:
‘We had six MPs and four factions’: inside Your Party’s toxic power struggles
At an early meeting to set the path for what would become Your Party, participants quickly agreed on one thing: given the cliches about leftwingers forever falling out, at all costs they must avoid a descent into factionalism.
Six months on and the Liverpool venue hosting this weekend’s inaugural Your Party conference has been warned to expect potential disruption, including stage invasions by disgruntled members representing particular wings. Extra security guards have been hired.
Even by the standards of fringe parties (see also, all those Re- parties on the right), Your Party is shaping up to be a corker of a fiasco. Any theories as to why it's so bad?
(Mine, apart from hating SKS not being a solid foundation for any party, is that tech makes it too easy to arrange the surface features of a movement when there's nothing underneath.)
I suspect it is some combination of divisions over small policy differences that often fixate the far left, the fundamental contradiction between a socially progressive party and a muslim party (note the reference in the article to trans issues already being a flashpoint), and the characters of Corbyn and Sultana being diametrically opposite personalities in almost every respect?
As a brand new outfit, there is 'everything to fight for' in terms of both its platform and who gets what job and hence where the organisational power lies. And it isn't being formed because of a strong, single imperative (for example the SDP originated from counter-reaction to Labour's opposition to Europe), so they don't have much to unite around other than Gaza.
The story of Your Party imploding while the Greens enjoy a surge is pretty much identical to Change UK imploding while the Lib Dems surged in 2018-19. Much easier to build from an established foundation and voter brand than create something entirely new.
UKIP and its successors are the exception, because there wasn’t an established party the populist right could inhabit at the time they first surged (the Conservatives were still officially a pro-EU party).
Has anyone ever asked the Change UK lot what they thought would happen with the LibDems? Did they think LibDem MPs would flock to Change UK and the party just dissolve itself? Did they think there would just be two centrist parties competing for votes? Did they think they would merge with the LibDems at some later date?
I don't think they had any plan at all. Because some of them - Gapes being an obvious example - were tribal Labour politicians with a strong dislike for the LibDems, there was never any question of their taking the SDP route and reaching an accommodation with them. They launched with no prospectus nor organisation, and people who expressed an interest (which I did, mostly from curiosity) never heard from them again. Nor did emails to them get answered.
The irony is that voters are now crying out for change, and parties offering or appearing to offer it - from Reform to the Greens and even the putative YP - are getting lots of support and interest.
But of course the other irony is that "Change UK" was almost the ultimate status quo party!
A thing politicians don't sufficiently get is that most people most of the time in most areas of life hate, distrust and detest change and the older they get the more this is true. They like familiarity, gradual development and incremental improvement.
A small group of people - early adopters, fashionistas, self haters, interferers and others - love change, especially change for its own sake. They are over represented in politics and media.
On the contrary, I think very many people want change right now - they see that politics and indeed many aspects of the country are broken, and need some significant changes to be mended. The trouble is that there isn't a consensus around what "mended" might mean, and no-one has a plan for getting there - nor the bravery to confront voters with any sort of honest appraisal.
They also want to change for everything but their Pet Things. When you sum up everyone's Pet Things....
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Out this morning - the Guardian on the latest YP chaos:
‘We had six MPs and four factions’: inside Your Party’s toxic power struggles
At an early meeting to set the path for what would become Your Party, participants quickly agreed on one thing: given the cliches about leftwingers forever falling out, at all costs they must avoid a descent into factionalism.
Six months on and the Liverpool venue hosting this weekend’s inaugural Your Party conference has been warned to expect potential disruption, including stage invasions by disgruntled members representing particular wings. Extra security guards have been hired.
Even by the standards of fringe parties (see also, all those Re- parties on the right), Your Party is shaping up to be a corker of a fiasco. Any theories as to why it's so bad?
(Mine, apart from hating SKS not being a solid foundation for any party, is that tech makes it too easy to arrange the surface features of a movement when there's nothing underneath.)
I suspect it is some combination of divisions over small policy differences that often fixate the far left, the fundamental contradiction between a socially progressive party and a muslim party (note the reference in the article to trans issues already being a flashpoint), and the characters of Corbyn and Sultana being diametrically opposite personalities in almost every respect?
As a brand new outfit, there is 'everything to fight for' in terms of both its platform and who gets what job and hence where the organisational power lies. And it isn't being formed because of a strong, single imperative (for example the SDP originated from counter-reaction to Labour's opposition to Europe), so they don't have much to unite around other than Gaza.
The story of Your Party imploding while the Greens enjoy a surge is pretty much identical to Change UK imploding while the Lib Dems surged in 2018-19. Much easier to build from an established foundation and voter brand than create something entirely new.
UKIP and its successors are the exception, because there wasn’t an established party the populist right could inhabit at the time they first surged (the Conservatives were still officially a pro-EU party).
Has anyone ever asked the Change UK lot what they thought would happen with the LibDems? Did they think LibDem MPs would flock to Change UK and the party just dissolve itself? Did they think there would just be two centrist parties competing for votes? Did they think they would merge with the LibDems at some later date?
I don't think they had any plan at all. Because some of them - Gapes being an obvious example - were tribal Labour politicians with a strong dislike for the LibDems, there was never any question of their taking the SDP route and reaching an accommodation with them. They launched with no prospectus nor organisation, and people who expressed an interest (which I did, mostly from curiosity) never heard from them again. Nor did emails to them get answered.
The irony is that voters are now crying out for change, and parties offering or appearing to offer it - from Reform to the Greens and even the putative YP - are getting lots of support and interest.
But of course the other irony is that "Change UK" was almost the ultimate status quo party!
A thing politicians don't sufficiently get is that most people most of the time in most areas of life hate, distrust and detest change and the older they get the more this is true. They like familiarity, gradual development and incremental improvement.
A small group of people - early adopters, fashionistas, self haters, interferers and others - love change, especially change for its own sake. They are over represented in politics and media.
On the contrary, I think very many people want change right now - they see that politics and indeed many aspects of the country are broken, and need some significant changes to be mended. The trouble is that there isn't a consensus around what "mended" might mean, and no-one has a plan for getting there - nor the bravery to confront voters with any sort of honest appraisal.
'Change' remains only a word unless there is a way in which you can identify the what and the how in a manner that distinguishes it from incremental improvement (which is doable) or unicorn transformation (which isn't.)
That was handy. It is rather good. No idea how accurate, but looked about right for some I know. If anything it is probably underestimating.
The closest one to here was a 70s gin palace built by the founder of Birchwood Boat, which I think is now a care home.
My dad was involved as architect when they built a swimming pool outside.
They delayed putting the liner in "until the morning", and there was heavy rain overnight so by the morning it was partly full of water which slightly poleaxed things.
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
So a repeat of the 1920s/1930s America First playbook, when the immediate consequence was that the USA spent about half a decade longer than other comparators (eg Europe) recovering from the Great Depression.
They still have consequences now due to some of the laws passed back then. Why, for example, despite Florida being the most significant hub of the cruise industry, are the majority of cruise ships built in Europe?
(There's a further question as to why none of them are built in the UK, of course.)
On an aside, how do people assess the USA now? I'm moving towards comparisons with Gulf states - third world governance system (not quite there yet, though), lots of wealth which is far too concentrated, and the little people can go and f*ck themselves.
Depends where, Alabama or even Florida maybe. The North East and west coast certainly not, New York city has even just elected a socialist Mayor
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
So a repeat of the 1920s/1930s America First playbook, when the immediate consequence was that the USA spent about half a decade longer than other comparators (eg Europe) recovering from the Great Depression.
They still have consequences now due to some of the laws passed back then. Why, for example, despite Florida being the most significant hub of the cruise industry, are the majority of cruise ships built in Europe?
(There's a further question as to why none of them are built in the UK, of course.)
On an aside, how do people assess the USA now? I'm moving towards comparisons with Gulf states - third world governance system (not quite there yet, though), lots of wealth which is far too concentrated, and the little people can go and f*ck themselves.
Depends where, Alabama or even Florida maybe. The North East and west coast certainly not, New York city has even just elected a socialist Mayor
I don't see anywhere being able to avoid the impact of Trump's tariffs if they stick, or even the impact of his expulsions of immigrant workers.
On Mamdani, I wonder whether what Livingstone did in London is a measure of what we may see? I'm not sure that he has the scope to do what some are worried about.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
And yet he’s weirdly silent on Trump and co’s malevolent influence on Ukraine’s future. Just like…some other people.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Ken was Mayor when we won the Olympics, and was also the inventor of Boris bikes, or at least the guy who nicked the idea from Paris.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
The appointment of Kate Bingham to the Chair of the UK Vaccine taskforce.
Almost entirely cancelled out by his appointment of Dido Harding. Swings & roundabouts, eh?!
When I first read 1984 I didn't really get why the lead was called Winston - in my eyes that was a name for black gentlemen of a certain age. I now realise three things. One - Winston Smith could be black anyway. Two - he was likely named after Winston Churchill. Three - lots of the Windrush children were called Winston after the PM too.
Stalin was a great world hero in 1945. You can imagine someone being christened that, not ironically.
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Oh I don't know, those NLAWs and Javelins just LOVED Russian tanks...
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Ken was Mayor when we won the Olympics, and was also the inventor of Boris bikes, or at least the guy who nicked the idea from Paris.
Ken also introduced the congestion charge, much copied since.
When I first read 1984 I didn't really get why the lead was called Winston - in my eyes that was a name for black gentlemen of a certain age. I now realise three things. One - Winston Smith could be black anyway. Two - he was likely named after Winston Churchill. Three - lots of the Windrush children were called Winston after the PM too.
Stalin was a great world hero in 1945. You can imagine someone being christened that, not ironically.
The black guy in "In Sickness and In Health" was also called Winston
The OBR says it informed Rachel Reeves as far back as ***September 17*** that the downgrade in productivity forecasts was offset by 'increases in real wages and inflation'. The deficit was in fact just £2.5billion
By October 31 that deficit had turned into net positive of £4.2billion. That basic forecast did not change from that point
So from what the OBR is saying it looks like Rachel Reeves and the Treasury were briefing ahead of the Budget that there was a £20billion black hole in the public finances that didn't actually exist
When I first read 1984 I didn't really get why the lead was called Winston - in my eyes that was a name for black gentlemen of a certain age. I now realise three things. One - Winston Smith could be black anyway. Two - he was likely named after Winston Churchill. Three - lots of the Windrush children were called Winston after the PM too.
Stalin was a great world hero in 1945. You can imagine someone being christened that, not ironically.
The black guy in "In Sickness and In Health" was also called Winston
When I first read 1984 I didn't really get why the lead was called Winston - in my eyes that was a name for black gentlemen of a certain age. I now realise three things. One - Winston Smith could be black anyway. Two - he was likely named after Winston Churchill. Three - lots of the Windrush children were called Winston after the PM too.
Stalin was a great world hero in 1945. You can imagine someone being christened that, not ironically.
There are, apparently, a lot of Kosovan young people called Toniblair.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Ken was Mayor when we won the Olympics, and was also the inventor of Boris bikes, or at least the guy who nicked the idea from Paris.
Ken also introduced the congestion charge, much copied since.
So again, not all bad.
That type of thing is more what I would see Mamdani doing. He also has some very difficult institutional things to do, such as tackling the NYPD. If I look at an overall trajectory, I would perhaps expect to see him make NY more "European" - which is very much against Trump's "remake the Wild West" grain.
Ken was afaics less radical policy-wise as Mayor than he had been previously in Camden.
(I'm probably looking through a "transport" and "human city" lens.)
So, according to the Atlantic, Zelenskyy has confirmed that he won't give up land for peace. Putin has confirmed that he cannot do a deal with Ukraine because it does not have a legitimate government. It's all going swimmingly despite the deadline of Thanksgiving having come and gone.
The Europeans need to massively increase their support for Ukraine so it becomes possible to hold their ground and, ideally, even push the Russians back a bit. At the moment Putin thinks he can still grind Ukraine into defeat so he doesn't need a deal. There will not be one until he is disabused of that belief.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Ken was Mayor when we won the Olympics, and was also the inventor of Boris bikes, or at least the guy who nicked the idea from Paris.
Ken also introduced the congestion charge, much copied since.
So again, not all bad.
I understand Boris was very popular with the LTDA when Mayor, mainly due unscheduled stop-offs on the meter.
Pandemic - not the inquiry conclusion
As both Mayor and PM he was significantly below the expected level of ethical standards, none of his contemporaries really meet them, but he's tailed off by a distance.
He was a very successful populist politician but poor in office.
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
His Ukrainian plan went nowhere. His go-to move for grabbing the headlines is tariffs, but those are looking trickier from a legal standpoint and he's had to start rolling them back because of the impact on inflation. What else does he have to ensure he's still the centre of attention? Of course: immigration! Elon will be pissed off, but that doesn't matter.
Isn't Vance's wife a migrant from a "third world country"?
And in immigrants doing the jobs too horrible for the locals to do news, Trumpet’s missus from a formerly second world country.
I'm sure that if he wants to President, Vance will divorce and deport her, to prove his commitment.
Reading around it seems Kemi is having a pretty decent post-budget media round for the last couple of days.
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
She has to call out most of the last Tory administrations for doing the same, however.
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
Tax advantages shouldn't be the reason somebody sets up a business.
When I first read 1984 I didn't really get why the lead was called Winston - in my eyes that was a name for black gentlemen of a certain age. I now realise three things. One - Winston Smith could be black anyway. Two - he was likely named after Winston Churchill. Three - lots of the Windrush children were called Winston after the PM too.
Stalin was a great world hero in 1945. You can imagine someone being christened that, not ironically.
When I first read 1984 I thought it was a dystopian novel, not an instruction manual.
It is with deepest sorrow that we announce the passing of Peter Whittle, founder and director of the New Culture Forum. Peter passed away yesterday evening surrounded by his loved ones. It is hard to overstate the impact Peter and the NCF have had on Britain’s cultural and political landscape since he founded the NCF twenty years ago. Peter’s courage, passion, integrity, wit and intellect inspired millions in Britain and around the world to think critically, challenge cultural orthodoxies, and champion free speech. The NCF will continue to honour Peter’s vision and values.
Totally O/t but how many Energy Advisors are there in any (?) postcode area.? We've had four this morning, all obviously pre-recorded. I'd be rude to them but no point when its not a human! And at least if the calls were from a human, someone would be getting paid to make them!
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
Also, just spotted the last by-election from yesterday. Winner no surprise but thought they'd do better - but LD in 2nd from nowhere. This is NW Norfolk, not N Norfolk.
Hunstanton (King's Lynn & West Norfolk) Council By-Election Result:
Top 10 constituencies most affected by the Mansion Tax (the top 3 should go back to the Tories at the next GE as a result and Kemi should be able to celebrate holding Kensington and Chelsea and gaining Westminster from Labour at the local elections next year too).
1 Kensington and Bayswater 2 Cities of London and Westminster 3 Chelsea and Fulham 4 Hampstead and Highgate 5 Richmond Park 6 Battersea 7 Wimbledon 8 Finchley and Golders Green 9 Hammersmith and Chiswick 10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Ken was Mayor when we won the Olympics, and was also the inventor of Boris bikes, or at least the guy who nicked the idea from Paris.
Ken also introduced the congestion charge, much copied since.
So again, not all bad.
Pretty much the only thing I would give Ken Livingston credit for was getting on the tube the day after the 7th July bombings. That was genuine class.
Also, just spotted the last by-election from yesterday. Winner no surprise but thought they'd do better - but LD in 2nd from nowhere. This is NW Norfolk, not N Norfolk.
Hunstanton (King's Lynn & West Norfolk) Council By-Election Result:
So, according to the Atlantic, Zelenskyy has confirmed that he won't give up land for peace. Putin has confirmed that he cannot do a deal with Ukraine because it does not have a legitimate government. It's all going swimmingly despite the deadline of Thanksgiving having come and gone.
The Europeans need to massively increase their support for Ukraine so it becomes possible to hold their ground and, ideally, even push the Russians back a bit. At the moment Putin thinks he can still grind Ukraine into defeat so he doesn't need a deal. There will not be one until he is disabused of that belief.
A serious US attempt to end the war would require leverage applied to both sides and some diligent skillful diplomacy performed quietly and in good faith. This isn't that on any level. It's been a farce and a waste of a lot of people's time (like Alaska was). Not sure it merited so much media attention given all the other things going on in the world.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
The OBR says it informed Rachel Reeves as far back as ***September 17*** that the downgrade in productivity forecasts was offset by 'increases in real wages and inflation'. The deficit was in fact just £2.5billion
By October 31 that deficit had turned into net positive of £4.2billion. That basic forecast did not change from that point
So from what the OBR is saying it looks like Rachel Reeves and the Treasury were briefing ahead of the Budget that there was a £20billion black hole in the public finances that didn't actually exist
The £30billion worth of tax rises in the Budget are predominantly a consequence of her decisions to increase public spending, particularly on welfare, and have £21.7billion worth of headroom
@hzeffman have all pointed out, it makes the Budget build up - and the narrative that big tax rises were coming because of a deterioration in the public finances - look frankly surreal in hindsight
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is a rational argument for that, not sure if I agree with it or whether it is medically correct, but it's basically that it's a slow cancer, treatment can be unpleasant and you'll die of something else first.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
I don't know the evidence of this specific case, but as a principle the decision around screening has to be a finely balanced one based on science not politics.
If the probability of a given group having a given disease do not exceed a certain level, for example, the incidence of false positives can be far in excess of the number of correct diagnoses. Even if the screening has a high accuracy level.
The OBR says it informed Rachel Reeves as far back as ***September 17*** that the downgrade in productivity forecasts was offset by 'increases in real wages and inflation'. The deficit was in fact just £2.5billion
By October 31 that deficit had turned into net positive of £4.2billion. That basic forecast did not change from that point
So from what the OBR is saying it looks like Rachel Reeves and the Treasury were briefing ahead of the Budget that there was a £20billion black hole in the public finances that didn't actually exist
The £30billion worth of tax rises in the Budget are predominantly a consequence of her decisions to increase public spending, particularly on welfare, and have £21.7billion worth of headroom
@hzeffman have all pointed out, it makes the Budget build up - and the narrative that big tax rises were coming because of a deterioration in the public finances - look frankly surreal in hindsight
How can anyone believe a word she says
She is making Truss look good [ well maybe not but on a par ]
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges If Rachel Reeves knowingly and publicly misrepresented the state of the national finances in the run up to the Budget, surely that represents very serious market manipulation.
The damage to the the Soyuz pad at Baikonur is confirmed.
This is the only pad the Russians currently have to launch to ISS. This means crew rotations blocked, but more importantly (perhaps) Progress cargo craft can't be sent to the station. The ISS can only be refuelled by Progress. Which means that after a while ISS will run out of fuel for attitude control related matters (It's a bit complicated with gyroscopes and de saturation, but that's the size of it)
To fix the pad, they would need to -
1) build a new service structure under the pad 2) Take a service structure from a mothballed pad 3) Convert/reactivate another pad - would ned to include work for Progress and the Suyuz spacecraft.
1) Will take a long, long time. SpaceX they are not. Years 2) Not been done before. It's a huge piece of equipment - might well need to be cut into sections, moved, rebuilt. 3) Again, will take a long, long time. Experience with Russian space tech and other Russian stuff is that the Russian approach to "moth balling" is "leave it to rust".
So no launches to the space station for months. Possibly years.
Which means a growing problem for the ISS - and a humiliation for Putin, incoming.
Yeah that launch pad is a real mess, looks to be a total writeoff.
They’re going to have to try and re-activate one of the old ones, and in the meantime there’s no Russian transport to the ISS, only SpaceX Dragon and Crew Dragon modules.
The big one is the refuelling, for which they’re going to have to either improvise a US solution or wait for the pad to be rebuilt. You’d put good money on SpaceX being able to improvise something if they could get their hands on a Russian docking assembly and refuelling rig.
Fun fact, the service module which collapsed under the launch pad was made in, you guessed it, Ukraine.
People have accidents all the time! What makes you think it was sabotage?
I don’t think it was sabotage, launch pads being damaged happens all the time in spaceflight, it’s a pretty unforgiving environment underneath a rocket launch!
It’s just that this particular failure has collapsed the entire service structure under the pad, and it’s debatable whether it’s even possible to fix it. It weighs hundreds of tonnes and was six decades old, but also the only one operational. Other similar structures exist close by at Baikanur, but they’re unlikely to be in good condition.
I saw on twitter that the other recently active launch area is indefinitely out of commission as it was built with Ukrainian electronics
Haha that would be funny, perhaps the Russians should have thought about things like this before they went to war with Ukraine? There’s a lot of the old Soviet military-industrial complex in Ukraine, and a lot of unserviceable equipment the Russians have is because of a need to get Ukranian parts.
One I remember well is gyroscopes for MiGs and Sukhois, they’re a very weird and quirky 1960s analogue technology that was still used up until the ‘90s, and are impossible for the Russians to service. There’s a number of Russian military planes grounded because of unserviceable gyroscopes, and they’re trying to get hold of them from all over the world they sold the planes to in period. I suspect the Chinese have some in stock they don’t want to sell!
Well, the plan was to roll in, take Kyiv, kill Zelensky and install a puppet, was it not? And all in short order. Ukranian parts secured at favourable rates long before any shortages would kick in.
Something something plans and reality
That plan had a reasonable prospect of success I would say. It just required the Zelenskyy government not to seriously defend Kyiv (as they didn't do in any of the cities in the South incidentally). But of course the government and people of Kyiv held their ground and Russia has never had a Plan B.
The Russians appeared to be expecting the roads to Kyiv to be lined with people waving Russian flags and giving them food as they passed.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
Is that going to end up as one of only a very small number of rubies in the dust of Boris Johnson's career: NLAWs to Ukraine?
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
Ukranians love Boris Johnson, for most of them he was the face of the international response to the war. Even if you dislike almost everything else he did as a politician, he deserves immense credit for that response. It wasn’t just the British response either, Johnson led a lot of the early meetings of European leaders, bringing goodwill despite the B-word. There’s a Boris Johnson Street in Kyiv, and a Boris Johnson pub near Lviv.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Ken was Mayor when we won the Olympics, and was also the inventor of Boris bikes, or at least the guy who nicked the idea from Paris.
Ken also introduced the congestion charge, much copied since.
So again, not all bad.
Pretty much the only thing I would give Ken Livingston credit for was getting on the tube the day after the 7th July bombings. That was genuine class.
He was also heavily instrumental in getting the Olympics to London, although he had zero interest in sport.
I disliked him very much, so much in fact that I voted for Boris in preference - one of the few times in my life I have voted for a Conservative. My objection to Ken was the blatant corruption. Ironic then that I voted for someone who became a by-word for it during his time as PM. I don't think he was so bad in his Mayor of London days though. And he was a showman, which is 90% of the gig.
'Donald Trump has said he will "permanently pause migration" to the US from all "third world countries".
The US president wrote in a Truth Social post that the decision would "allow the US system to fully recover" from immigration policies that had eroded the "gains and living conditions" of many Americans. He did not provide details of his plan or name which countries might be affected.' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxweyy157go
His Ukrainian plan went nowhere. His go-to move for grabbing the headlines is tariffs, but those are looking trickier from a legal standpoint and he's had to start rolling them back because of the impact on inflation. What else does he have to ensure he's still the centre of attention? Of course: immigration! Elon will be pissed off, but that doesn't matter.
Isn't Vance's wife a migrant from a "third world country"?
No. She’s the child of immigrants from a third world country,
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
There is unquestionably a lot of misogyny in our society both historically and today but the difference in resource, research and treatment for breast cancer and prostate cancer is pretty hard to justify by any sane measure.
Not sure about that. Breast cancer affects women AND men - pro rata allowing for the different quantity of tissue, and the hormonal environmental differences, I suspect: but it's there.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
So, according to the Atlantic, Zelenskyy has confirmed that he won't give up land for peace. Putin has confirmed that he cannot do a deal with Ukraine because it does not have a legitimate government. It's all going swimmingly despite the deadline of Thanksgiving having come and gone.
The Europeans need to massively increase their support for Ukraine so it becomes possible to hold their ground and, ideally, even push the Russians back a bit. At the moment Putin thinks he can still grind Ukraine into defeat so he doesn't need a deal. There will not be one until he is disabused of that belief.
A serious US attempt to end the war would require leverage applied to both sides and some diligent skillful diplomacy performed quietly and in good faith. This isn't that on any level. It's been a farce and a waste of a lot of people's time (like Alaska was). Not sure it merited so much media attention given all the other things going on in the world.
Not just a waste of time but of lives as well.
If Witless hadn't told Trump to veto the Tomahawks, those Russian drone factories would be smouldering wrecks. And the apartment blocks they target would still be standing, their occupants not dead or maimed.
There are pair of articles there; one pro-jury, the other anti. I must say I'm swinging anti-jury, from all I've read, including the horrendous backlog we've built up.
Can't find the quote but I think Denning liked juries precisely because of their occasionally perverse decisions. I suspect he would have approved of the Clive Ponting decision, which was technically wrong but morally right.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
The problem with it, iiuc, is that it would lead to a lot of unnecessary worry and further testing and treatment (much of it invasive) for men who either don't have the cancer or have a slow growing asymptomatic version that they'd be better off not knowing about. So when you balance all that, and the £££ cost, against the expected number of lives saved it's not such a great idea. Certainly not a no-brainer anyway.
Comments
The irony is that voters are now crying out for change, and parties offering or appearing to offer it - from Reform to the Greens and even the putative YP - are getting lots of support and interest.
But of course the other irony is that "Change UK" was almost the ultimate status quo party!
The Dems were standard centre-left but had a populist wing in the Prairies and Rockies and a KKK wing in the confederate states.
The GOP were standard centre-right but had a liberal wing in the north east and a southern unionist wing in Appalachia.
YP garnered a fair amount of initial enthusiasm, but lacks a prospectus, clear leadership, or organisation. And is going to struggle to create all three, given that each inevitably leads to dissent and an internal struggle for power (such as it is).
However, some measures were very unpopular. 62% opposed reducing the amount that can be paid into a cash ISA, 50% opposed capping the amount that can be paid into pensions without paying NI via salary sacrifice, 56% opposed freezing the amount people can earn before paying tax at its current level and 56% also opposed ending the 2 child benefit cap (though 52% of Green voters backed ending the cap)
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53583-how-have-britons-reacted-to-the-2025-budget
So huge and enforced penalties for bogus lawsuits, a massive reduction in legal fees through deregulation and the introduction of proper competition in the legal profession and the introduction of the loser pays principle to deter frivolous lawsuits and defences would go a long way to fix what an American lawyer friend of mine recently called "this totally broken system".
But all those measures would devastate the earnings of the parasitic legal profession that dominates Congress (about 30% of the House and 50% of the Senate have legal backgrounds of some type), so none will ever happen.
A small group of people - early adopters, fashionistas, self haters, interferers and others - love change, especially change for its own sake. They are over represented in politics and media.
Something something plans and reality
I'm sure there will be about 6 Letters from America if I look at the archives.
And the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is called Stalin (that's his given name, not surname)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._K._Stalin?wprov=sfla1
They still have consequences now due to some of the laws passed back then. Why, for example, despite Florida being the most significant hub of the cruise industry, are the majority of cruise ships built in Europe?
(There's a further question as to why none of them are built in the UK, of course.)
On an aside, how do people assess the USA now? I'm moving towards comparisons with Gulf states - third world governance system (not quite there yet, though), lots of wealth which is far too concentrated, and the little people can go and f*ck themselves.
Instead, they were lined with people carrying NLAWs and Javelins, who weren’t fans of Russian tanks.
@DanNeidle
We’ve mapped the mansion tax.
You can see who's paying - which constituency, which postcode - and how many "mansions" are near you.
Full interactive map here 👇
https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1994335968816443478
The only other one I can find is his kicking off of bringing the first generation of widespread mobility infrastructure to London.
What have I missed?
At the pub yesterday the message from non-political friends was that it's fundamentally unfair to put taxes up on working people to increase welfare/benefits. The Tories need to really go hard here and have an alternative plan that is fully costed that will show how to cut welfare and not raise taxes on working people. I think this is the opening that they can really make hay with.
The man isn't all bad.
There is quite a bit of anger about it on my local FB groups too.
I think for the Tories go hard on it as it was a reform policy too.
In the run up to the invasion, the FSB tried widespread bribery of politicians, business owners etc to get them to work for Russian. A 5th column.
The vast majority reported these approaches to Ukrainian intelligence. Who told them to take the money, and become double agents.
So Ukrainian intelligence had complete infiltration of the Russian network in Ukraine. Which meant that many of the Russian operations in Ukraine at the start of the invasion were compromised. See the airport attack, for example.
The problem was that the Russians, before the invasion, thought that everyone they’d approached had signed on. If everyone at the top of the country was prepared to work for Russia, the war was going to be a doddle. Obviously…
And she wishes everyone a happy Christmas.
He was also Mayor for the Olympics, and as you say introduced rental bikes in London.
I’ll also argue that he finally got the B-word over the line after half a decade of wasted time, and that his response to the pandemic was generally good.
Very nice chap, actually. Jamaican IIRC.
My dad was involved as architect when they built a swimming pool outside.
They delayed putting the liner in "until the morning", and there was heavy rain overnight so by the morning it was partly full of water which slightly poleaxed things.
On Mamdani, I wonder whether what Livingstone did in London is a measure of what we may see? I'm not sure that he has the scope to do what some are worried about.
Just like…some other people.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kpmm20zwwo
Is it that time of the month already?
Swings & roundabouts, eh?!
Stalin was a great world hero in 1945. You can imagine someone being christened that, not ironically.
1 Kensington and Bayswater
2 Cities of London and Westminster
3 Chelsea and Fulham
4 Hampstead and Highgate
5 Richmond Park
6 Battersea
7 Wimbledon
8 Finchley and Golders Green
9 Hammersmith and Chiswick
10 Runneymede and Weybridge
Epping Forest is 33rd and Brentwood and Ongar 38th
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/11/27/mansion-tax-map-where-the-money-comes-from/
Dividend taxes have been creeping up since Osborne. There is almost no fiscal incentive to set up a business now.
If she draws a line in the sand and makes the Tories an actual pro business, anti big-state party, she might just survive as leader till the next election
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/28/david-lammy-jury-trials-justice-system
So again, not all bad.
Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
BREAKING
The OBR says it informed Rachel Reeves as far back as ***September 17*** that the downgrade in productivity forecasts was offset by 'increases in real wages and inflation'. The deficit was in fact just £2.5billion
By October 31 that deficit had turned into net positive of £4.2billion. That basic forecast did not change from that point
So from what the OBR is saying it looks like Rachel Reeves and the Treasury were briefing ahead of the Budget that there was a £20billion black hole in the public finances that didn't actually exist
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1994371020048773124
Ken was afaics less radical policy-wise as Mayor than he had been previously in Camden.
(I'm probably looking through a "transport" and "human city" lens.)
The Europeans need to massively increase their support for Ukraine so it becomes possible to hold their ground and, ideally, even push the Russians back a bit. At the moment Putin thinks he can still grind Ukraine into defeat so he doesn't need a deal. There will not be one until he is disabused of that belief.
Pandemic - not the inquiry conclusion
As both Mayor and PM he was significantly below the expected level of ethical standards, none of his contemporaries really meet them, but he's tailed off by a distance.
He was a very successful populist politician but poor in office.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/11/27/how-the-deadly-hong-kong-fire-unfolded
"The New Culture Forum
@NewCultureForum
It is with deepest sorrow that we announce the passing of Peter Whittle, founder and director of the New Culture Forum. Peter passed away yesterday evening surrounded by his loved ones. It is hard to overstate the impact Peter and the NCF have had on Britain’s cultural and political landscape since he founded the NCF twenty years ago. Peter’s courage, passion, integrity, wit and intellect inspired millions in Britain and around the world to think critically, challenge cultural orthodoxies, and champion free speech. The NCF will continue to honour Peter’s vision and values.
Rest in peace,
@prwhittle"
https://x.com/NewCultureForum/status/1994356856932712690
I'd be rude to them but no point when its not a human! And at least if the calls were from a human, someone would be getting paid to make them!
Hunstanton (King's Lynn & West Norfolk) Council By-Election Result:
➡️ RFM: 29.2% (New)
🔶 LDM: 25.6% (New)
🙋 Ind: 18.2% (-11.0)
🌳 CON: 17.8% (-23.0)
🙋 Ind: 6.1% (New)
🌹 LAB: 3.2% (-21.0)
No Ind (-35.0) as previous.
Reform GAIN from Independent.
Changes w/ 2023.
https://bsky.app/profile/electionmaps.uk/post/3m6orhran3s2l
Unhelpfully and despite all their new members, no Greens last night so we can't gauge their progress.
That is fundamentally unjust to men and frankly unacceptable
Prevention is better than cure
I should say I have been fortunate not to have had a problem but know many who have
Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
BREAKING
The OBR says it informed Rachel Reeves as far back as ***September 17*** that the downgrade in productivity forecasts was offset by 'increases in real wages and inflation'. The deficit was in fact just £2.5billion
By October 31 that deficit had turned into net positive of £4.2billion. That basic forecast did not change from that point
So from what the OBR is saying it looks like Rachel Reeves and the Treasury were briefing ahead of the Budget that there was a £20billion black hole in the public finances that didn't actually exist
The £30billion worth of tax rises in the Budget are predominantly a consequence of her decisions to increase public spending, particularly on welfare, and have £21.7billion worth of headroom
As
@Peston
@PippaCrerar
@hzeffman
have all pointed out, it makes the Budget build up - and the narrative that big tax rises were coming because of a deterioration in the public finances - look frankly surreal in hindsight
And yes, I've had prostate cancer. Very interesting experience, radiotherapy.
If the probability of a given group having a given disease do not exceed a certain level, for example, the incidence of false positives can be far in excess of the number of correct diagnoses. Even if the screening has a high accuracy level.
It's a different matter to encourage men to go to the doc if there are symptoms, of course.
She is making Truss look good [ well maybe not but on a par ]
Gaby Hinsliff"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/28/jury-trials-flawed-unwieldy-justice-legal-system-david-lammy
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
If Rachel Reeves knowingly and publicly misrepresented the state of the national finances in the run up to the Budget, surely that represents very serious market manipulation.
I disliked him very much, so much in fact that I voted for Boris in preference - one of the few times in my life I have voted for a Conservative. My objection to Ken was the blatant corruption. Ironic then that I voted for someone who became a by-word for it during his time as PM. I don't think he was so bad in his Mayor of London days though. And he was a showman, which is 90% of the gig.
Also - screening for females seems to stop at 71 (though you can ask for later checks). Not sure of the logic of that.
Edit: BC seems to affect women much earlier and with more speedily lethal effects, too, or so I understand it.
If Witless hadn't told Trump to veto the Tomahawks, those Russian drone factories would be smouldering wrecks. And the apartment blocks they target would still be standing, their occupants not dead or maimed.
@JamesCleverly
·
16m
🚨A budget built on lies🚨
https://x.com/JamesCleverly/status/1994378742962225609